Tag: Refashion

New linings

I had two hats, whose linings had come loose and were pulling apart. While forgetting to take a before picture, I did set out to fix these two hats. It only took me.. 5 months or so to get it done…

Once I’d seam ripped the linings apart, I could see that it was some black stuff reinforced with some thicker batting. I’d copied the pattern onto some paper and cut it out of the same lining fabric I used for the three-piece-suit. It was a disaster. Warped, horrible, couldn’t get it to fit. I just gave up and put the hats in the corner of shame for almost half a year. Then, about a week ago, I finally got myself in gear and got to finishing these things. I chucked the butterfly lining pieces away and grabbed a plaid shirt that I’d bought to refashion at some point. The lining pieces were cut from the fronts and sleeves of the shirt and I set to sewing. All in all, it probably took me about 2-3 hours to get both hats finished, with some hand sewing time included.

Now, I have two more hats that I can comfortably wear again when the weather starts to turn. I like that I was able to fix these so they didn’t need to be thrown out. I also really like the contrast with the red plaid and the black/brown hats. I’m calling this a win for now.

Sewing for someone else

I got asked if I wanted to help someone. It was going to be an easy alteration to a vest that was too big. I said yes, and he came over for me to pin. I never hit him (yay!). It took 2 centimeters in each side seam, and 1 on the shoulders, but it does look a lot better now. It even looks quite nice on the inside:

Shoulders Side seam

If I do say so myself. It fits a lot better than it did before. Not so very much too big. I don’t know if I’ll do it again, because it’s nicer to make things for me (I follow in the steps of the Selfish Seamstress), unless they are real presents. So we’ll see in the future what happens.

Productivity, 5.

Lastly, the previous weekend also saw the birth of a refashion. My brother had a pair of pants that he didn’t wear anymore. These jeans are now a skirt for me!

I’ve been working on it for ages, since boy jeans apparently have an angled fly to accommodate the ‘business’. Since I don’t have said business, there was no need to have that extra room there. It took me a couple of nights with the seam ripper, but I eventually figured out how it was put together and how I could put it back together nicely again without the bulge. I have, however, always been scared that I would fail with the sewing. Well Sunday I decided that the time was right (and I wanted to continue the streak) so I took it to the machine. Well both machines, I did some serging on it too. It took a while and frequent running back and forth to the machine and ironing board and pinning stuff together, but it’s finished now.

Skirt front Skirt back

I chose to take in some with in order to accommodate a back vent. I tried slits before, but they tend to break on me and that looks really hideous. So I finished the vent edges with bias tape and created myself a nice vent. I also hand stitched the hem so it would be invisible. Don’t know if that worked but I enjoyed myself while doing it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’m not convinced yet that it will see much wear, me and skirts, not really a fantastic combination. However, I’ll try to wear it this summer. I was planning on wearing it on Monday, but when I looked out my window, it was snowing. Snow and skirts in my opinion don’t go together well.

Refashion

I’ve been experimenting with refashioning clothing I don’t wear because of ‘issues’ I have with them. There was this skirt:

Before

Which was worn by my mother in the picture, as a costume. She’s just a bit taller, and has the elastic higher than I would have it. So when I was wearing the skirt, it would be over the knee really. The style, for me, didn’t look right when it was over the knee. So what I did was take of the elasticated waistband completely. Then I removed the elastic from its fabric wrapper. The fabric was 2 meters long, which I thought was a bit too long to stick in a waistband, so with 20 pleats I made the fabric 1 meter long.

The skirt is reversible with a red and a black fabric, so I did the same for the other bit of fabric. Sewed them together at the top and put the elastic in and sewed beneath that. The skirt is now still reversible, but has also lost about 10 cm in length. It looks more up to date now and I think it’s easier to wear when it warms up a little again. This is the final result, sorry for the crappy pictures. It’s been terrible weather on this bit of the planet.

 

Refashion

I found this pile of clothes that my mom was discarding a couple of weeks ago and I nicked some stuff from it (with permission of course). I was inspired by Marisa from New dress a day (here). She often picks up cheap and (relatively) ugly items for very little money (say $1), and makes them all nice and wearable again. Admittedly my items are the ones I actually liked without having to do much on it, and were for free.

They include a red/black/grey dress, a red sweater and some more which I haven’t done anything with yet. I forgot to take pictures of the red sweater before, but it’s not finished yet (I am snipping of the edges of the sleeves and the bottom, because they were all curly and creepy. Also, I’m removing some of the really ugly embellishments on the front). However, about a quarter of an hour ago I decided to make the red/black/grey dress suitable for my wardrobe.

At first I couldn’t spot anything wrong with it and assumed that it was just too small or something, but on closer inspection..

 

A hole! 1.5 inch or so from the centre front seam. Since I’m a little smaller than my mother, I thought it would be no problem to take in the front that bit as to hide the hole. So I did (actually, typing this up and taking the photo’s took longer than the actual sewing), and also did a little resewing of one of the ties. Since they were coming apart, see below.

This is the end result, the whole dress and the centre front without hole. I hope I’ll wear it more often.